Tongue-Thai’ed! Part XI: Suthep’s nightmares and Godwin’s law

“Tongue-Thai’ed!” encapsulates the most baffling, amusing, confusing, outrageous and appalling quotes from Thai politicians and other public figures – in short: everything we hear that makes us go “Huh?!”. Check out all past entries here.

It’s been been a while since former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban has said anything outrageous, even though there was enough material while he was in office. But with the controversies surrounding the Nitirat group, the proposed constitution amendments, and the always imminent threat of a return by Thaksin Shinawatra to Thailand has Suthep finally lashing out against his political enemies again.

Thai Rath reports on a special lecture by him titled something like “Solutions to the Thai Crisis and the Deputy Prime Minister in Context to [the Nation’s] Stability” (“การแก้ไขปัญหาวิกฤติประเทศไทยในระหว่างดำรงตำแหน่งรองนายกรัฐมนตรีฝ่ายความมั่นคง”) – unfortunately failing to mention when and at what location – where Suthep responds to the recent red shirt rally in Khao Yai. During the event, where 30,000 red shirts gathered to show their support to a charter change and against any potential military coup. Thaksin inevitably phoned in yet again (video here) and also reportedly said that he would be willing to pay compensation for the victims of the 2010 anti-government rally out of his own pocket, only if the then-ruling Democrat Party would admit that “it has killed people.” Suthep here compares Thaksin to former prime minister Chuan Leekpai, while the latter is described by him as a politician with integrity and the former is not – so far, so simple is his good-vs-evil-dichotomy.

Suthep continues: “[…] but Trairong Suwankiri has once said that when Hitler became leader of Germany through elections, he rewrote the law only to give himself more power and is concerned that this is the similar case with Thaksin today, who tries to amend the law [in favor] to himself in order to readily seize the country.”

We have seen the muddled world history knowledge by members of the Democrat Party before (see here and here) – but instead of diving into a factual history lesson to prove them wrong, let’s just say that by invoking Godwin’s Law, they clearly show that they cannot come up with a better, more reasonable argument against Thaksin.

“These days, it is a time where the Thai people have to think how to protect and safely get through [the political crisis]. I constantly have nightmares that when the red shirts take over Thailand, it would be more violent than when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia! Today, Russia has done away communism, but the red shirts think that their party is the only ruling party! Everybody has to wake up! Follow the situation as close as you can! We have to follow our national duty to oppose the charter amendments and the amendments Article 112 […]” said Suthep.

Stop right there! As I have mentioned before, Suthep is notoriously known to say the most outrageously insensitive things (most infamously suggesting that the 2010 protesters died because “they ran into the bullets!”) – but being able to go lower than any Hitler comparison by making an arbitrary suggestion to equate the red shirts to the Khmer Rouge’s genocide lacks any rational basis.

Suthep and many like-minded fellows are stuck in their own nightmare that they have constructed in their minds and created in reality all by themselves. It’s time for them to wake up!

If you come across any verbosities that you think might fit in here send us a email at siamvoices [at] gmail.com or tweet us @siamvoices.

Saksith Saiyasombut is a Thai blogger and journalist currently based in Hamburg, Germany. He can be followed on Twitter @Saksith and also on his public Facebook page here.

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I worked for Channel NewsAsia and other various media organizations such as ITN, IHA. Also, I made appearances on Al Jazeera English, France 24, Deutsche Welle TV, BBC World Service and Radio Australia.